Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

Perspectivism is not exclusive to minds perspectivism is something a simple camera can show when focusing any point in space, its is embed in reality at large...it means context among others. And by others I mean anything not minds particularly...location, location, location.

There is no such thing as something existing without context and no focal relations. Thankfully there is gravitation at work... Multiple perspectives are only possible within several frames of "time", better put, within several spatial contexts or sets of relations. The bottom line is there is always someone home. And since there are patterns in this world often the someone at home is the dominant alpha the plethora of selfs JL appeals to cannot avoid.

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@spendius,

Selfs are just internally coherent patterns of awareness. It can be argued we have more then one pattern at work after all there is a lot of role playing to do in this God forsaken world. What can't be argued is that experiencing always requires a given self in the drive seat no matter who within the gang. There is no such a thing as being one with the world such that there is no perspectivism at work. What JL appeals to is a comatose state.

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@JLNobody,

I am just going to revisit a comment I made on page 1 which may be helpful to your current discussion.

Quote:

The non-dualistic claim is therefore that "self" is an aspect of samsara or roughly "everyday cyclical experience in a time dimension", whereas meditational practice can give a glimpse of nirvana or "holistic non-temporal non-spatial being". It is the re-emergence of "self" back into samsara which describes the meditational experience as one of "non-self".

In your terminology I assume "experience of non-self" is "mushin", but there is no experiencer. There is only a depersonalized experiencing This is the point that dualists, steeped in the Western subject-object tradition acquired via normal language, cannot get their heads round. Yet it only requires a little honest reflection to notice that most of the time one's concept of "self as experiencing agent" is absent from requirements for the flow of "being".

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@Fil Albuquerque,

People might rightfully ask if there is always a perspective at work then where does the confusion comes from ? Why so many people describe this sort of experiences, the sense of "dissolving" within reality ? My answer to them would be that meditation is not the absence of a self nor the absence of perspectivism but rather the absence of attempted control, the absence of a narrator. How do I know this, as I am no Buddhist nor do I indulge in preaching this stuff ? Well in my defence I can only say that I meditate by accident very very often since I was a child, I just don't brag about it and often feel embarrassed...I just naturally tend to abstract and gaze without a single thought in my soul, is just the way I am...I literally stop hearing people and often people call me back wondering what I was at or thinking about...when I reply nothing in particular some more intimate with me take offence. The description that meditation is the path to an absence of a self it is to put it mildly crude...at best meditation kills the narrator to yourself, not what you really are being at one point in time.

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Taking it one step further on the wild side of speculation, even a quantum superposition of states of mind is clearly very distinct of no mind or no experiencing...an ensemble of many is still one (an) orchestra ! (not noise)
Selfs, in the classical sense, are just rock bands but not necessarily a singular unity without components...what is singular in the self is the music not the number of instruments. The confusion arises when we think of rock bands as one and orchestras as many...both views are wrong.

The self is an overarching pattern of music, with meditation the pattern just grows, it doesn't dilute !...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

No fil its not a path to anywhere, but yes it is relinquishing of a preoccupation with control which is the essence of being an agent. I suggest the phrase "what you are really being" is vacuous.

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@fresco,

(EDITED)
No Fresco..I spoke of the function of meditation en passent without much careful wording...the point is was you confuse the narrator with the self...self is something much deeper within, the being there, the narrator emerges from it. The true agent is behind the narrator but it is not the narrator. Actually recent studies in neurology show precisely decision making comes before conscious awareness. But believe me there is a bunch load of parallel computing at work before the final narrator emerges. In all fairness you ought to recon in an individual the specific pathways in neural connections don't change when narrators change.

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@fresco,

I wouldn't go that far! I doubt "intelligence" has much to do with belief in any religion.

Since all of our realities are subjective, some people may think they are experiencing what they think and feel - even if some of it seems foreign to us.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

If the people "arguing the other side" find their selves or minds as agents of action then, to that extent, they will see the "mushin" or no-mind point of view to be wrong; but when they can no longer find their mind they will realize that they were deluded. There's nothing to argue about.
By the way, we conventionally use the phrase "losing one's mind" to indicate something bad. From the zen perspective there's no mind to lose. And that's "good" for when you realize yourmushin you also realize that since there is no "thing" (i.e., mind, self, ego) inside you, you are the world, the world of sensations or experiences that comprise your worldview. You are your experiences; they do not happen to some thing within you. This realization of unity with the world is, eveyone who has the perspective agrees, a "good".

So, JL...does that mean you guys have to be right...that there is no self? Some people think there is a self. Does that mean they have to be wrong?

If anyone is being "deluded"...must it be the people who think there is a self...and it cannot be you guys?

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@Frank Apisa,

You know Frank...my point is quite simple be it here in this thread about the self be it in another thread like nothingness...nihilism is always a bad argument for any sort of claim ! These guys have the merit of consistency...they always commit to the same mistake.

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@cicerone imposter,

Understand. It wired in the brain. It does come from DNA which is at work in the development of the brain.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

you are the world, the world of sensations or experiences that comprise your worldview. You are your experiences; they do not happen to some thing within you.

Yes. This my understanding. That was the epiphany I had while reading a Buddhist text. It read simply, "This is it." Oh!

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@IRFRANK,

Totally besides the point...how is that not a self ??? And what the "frack" would be the "world" without things ? An empty set ? Furthermore going down that Solipsist radical road of wording doesn't leave much space left for any kind of interaction even between inanimate objects let alone social agreement between agents...if there is experiencing and flow then thinging is very much needed...the world is a collection of ratios between things, without it all you have is brain dead, or more deeply, thermal equilibrium...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Have you heard about non commutative geometry ? You may try destroy the world to get into a final self and you are left with the world all the same...the opposite is not true. The world is always the world, "outside" or "inside", are just relative frames of reference !

...perspectivism is much more then the artifice the illusion of consciousness...perspectivism is thinging by exchanging information...things in what they are being are the product of a Universal order of relations, structure. A world without structure is nothing.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

You know Frank...my point is quite simple be it here in this thread about the self be it in another thread like nothingness...nihilism is always a bad argument for any sort of claim ! These guys have the merit of consistency...they always commit to the same mistake.

They (!!!) do indeed. For there to be a they...and for us to be out here for them to make claims...sorta belies the claims...such as they are, Fil.

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@Frank Apisa,

I wouldn't say it any better Frank... Wink

...but you know what is odd in the end of the day...I like them any way !

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You are going too far. Much too complicated. Being aware and 'experiencing' without constant analysis and judgement is not comatose.

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@IRFRANK,

...percepts it can be argued are "judgements" of the self, but not on the level of consciousness, they result of a pro active interaction of the specificities of the "physical" brain with input data, the very start of subjectivity...this is the kind of argument normally your idealist rationalist (I assume) line of reasoning throws around against empiricism...so I end up wondering why you don't like it. To my view the absence of percepts would be comatose.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

.....or dead.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

In your terminology I assume "experience of non-self" is "mushin", but there is no experiencer. There is only a depersonalized experiencing This is the point that dualists, steeped in the Western subject-object tradition acquired via normal language, cannot get their heads round. Yet it only requires a little honest reflection to notice that most of the time one's concept of "self as experiencing agent" is absent from requirements for the flow of "being".

i'm going to admit here that i've read very little of the ongoing debate in this thread, and i assume no sides within it, but i'm curious about your response to this concern: While i am open to the idea that the "self" is a complicated fiction, a temporary eddy that separates consciousness from the "flow of being" ("becoming"?); it's unclear, in the context of your statement (and you may have already clarified this in an earlier post in this thread, yet), how experiences are limited, as they are, in a multitude of ways.

How can a view that admits a "most of the time" v. "rarely" describe itseslf as non-dualistc?

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Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

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